Joe Conti leaving the LCB, but not for long

Say what you will about the controversial Joe Conti of Doylestown, he sure knows how to land on his feet — this time with a nice now-he's-out and now-he-isn't deal with the state Liquor Control Board.

In 2005, then-state Sen. Conti, R-Bucks, had a starring role in the Pennsylvania Legislature's outrageous pay grab drama. With a flair that was a bit much even by Harrisburg's colorful standards, he displayed some of the most blatant contempt for state taxpayers ever seen.

Conti seemed to be thumbing his nose at those taxpayers when he announced that he was going to keep the illegal money that he and his Harrisburg colleagues had voted for themselves, because he already had spent it on goodies for his house.

He all but dared anybody to do anything about it, saying the only way he'd return the money was if "the [state] treasurer came to pick up the new hot water heater."

The illegal pay raises of 2005 (as high as 54 percent) and the related illegal "unvouchered expense" payments to lawmakers were repealed amid public fury, and Conti was persuaded to give back the swag, hot water heater or no hot water heater. The uproar, however, cost him and some other legislators their jobs.

Even a member of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which grabbed and kept its own illegal pay raises, repeal or no repeal, was voted off the bench that year, almost unheard of in Pennsylvania. (Usually, judges could not be dislodged with dynamite, no matter what they did, as illustrated by the current membership of that court.)

I had the impression at the time that if the people of Doylestown had a rail handy, they were so angry over Conti's flippant hot water heater comment they would have run him out of town on it.

He blamed the water heater fuss on the press. "The incivility of the print media is staggering," he said at the time.

In any case, Conti wisely decided to leave the Legislature for even greener pastures provided by the public. Although he was a Republican, he knew how to play ball in Harrisburg and then-Gov. Ed Rendell, a Democrat, and his allies secretly cooked up a glorious new LCB job out of thin air.

The position of LCB chief executive officer had never been needed before, but Rendell arranged for CEO Conti to get $150,000 a year, more than double what was being paid to the LCB chairman. Conti's salary as CEO has now grown to $156,000.

His supporters said he was qualified for the job because he once ran a couple of restaurants with liquor licenses in Bucks County.

Effective Saturday, however, Conti will be retiring from his CEO job at the LCB.

Two weeks after that, he'll be back.

(I missed a Jan. 19 press release announcing his retirement, but this past weekend the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette broke the story about that and Conti's planned return.)

While collecting his $60,000 state pension, Conti also will collect paychecks for doing "emergency" work for the LCB at the rate of $80.16 an hour on a "part-time" basis.

This is with the blessings of Gov. Tom Corbett, who, just last year, said that Conti's $156,000 LCB gravy train ought to be derailed. After published reports said Conti had received gifts and favors from LCB vendors, Corbett said he'd like to eliminate the CEO job altogether.

State law limits the amount of work that pensioned state employees can be paid to do after they have retired.

"An annuitant may be returned to state service for a period not to exceed 95 days in any calendar year," the law says, and only if the governor declares "that an emergency exists" and it involves a "serious impairment of service to the public."

That, said a gubernatorial "Management Directive" in 2002, applies "to all agencies, boards, councils and commissions under the governor's jurisdiction."

The directive says that before a governor can declare an emergency to justify bringing back a retired employee, the head of the agency involved "shall … determine that a bona fide emergency exists."

In Conti's case, the governor's Office of Administration made such a declaration in advance, on Jan. 18, a day before his retirement announcement, so I asked spokesman Dave Egan what sort of emergency was anticipated to justify bringing Conti back. It is, he said, "in preparation for legislative hearings … among other things."

LCB spokeswoman Stacy Kriedeman told me that Conti will be needed because he has "important strategic information, as well as expertise critical to the daily operation of the LCB."

If you calculate how much Conti will get for his 95 days of emergency work — assuming he can bill the state for, say, 13 hours a day (not an unheard-of practice in Harrisburg) — and add a $60,000 pension, this could be another increase in income.

I'm not saying he'll actually bill the LCB for that many hours every year, and I must note that it's up to the LCB to decide how much "emergency" work they need him to perform. But keep in mind that this is the guy who felt the public should buy him a hot water heater via an illegal pay and voucher grab just a few years ago.

Maybe it's just me, but suddenly the long-standing proposals calling for the privatization of the state's liquor monopoly are starting to sound better and better.